Business Student’s Perception towards Sustainability Reporting Quality: the Moderating Effects of Corporate Integrity

Loi, Kuong Min (2023) Business Student’s Perception towards Sustainability Reporting Quality: the Moderating Effects of Corporate Integrity. Masters thesis, Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

Text 23 Loi Kuong Min (MCG).pdf Restricted to Registered users only Download (1MB)

Abstract

A wide spectrum of stakeholders is seeing that sustainable development is one of the most significant current topics of interest. As a result, stakeholders have deemed sustainability reporting to be a crucial component of corporate disclosure since it outlines and disseminates the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives that the companies have incorporated into their operations. The rising adoption of sustainability reporting practises by businesses and the introduction of reforms by several nations to enhance the quality of sustainability reporting are all results of the stakeholders' greater awareness of the need for sustainability reporting. To guarantee that stakeholders have the information they need to evaluate an organisation's sustainability performance, the quality of sustainability reports released by companies should be assessed. This study investigates the direct relationships between gender diversity, shareholder activism, sustainable leadership, internal control system, and perceived sustainability reporting quality respectively, as well as the moderating effect of corporate integrity on the direct relationships. To achieve the objectives of this research, a quantitative approach, specifically a cross-sectional method is adopted, and 301 business students from undergraduate and postgraduate levels were surveyed. The data collected were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 29.0. This research’s findings indicate that gender diversity, shareholder activism, sustainable leadership and internal control are positively and significantly associated with the sustainability reporting quality from the perspective of business students. Furthermore, corporate integrity is proven to moderate the direct effect of gender diversity and internal control system towards perceived sustainability reporting quality. This study contributes to the extant literature by examining the factors affecting sustainability reporting quality from the perspective of business students through Stakeholder Theory, Legitimacy Theory, and Signalling Theory. The research’s findings showed a significant relationship between the variables. Besides, corporate integrity is proven to have moderating effect towards the relationship between gender diversity and internal control systems with perceived sustainability reporting quality. From a practical point of view, this research offers new insights on the assessment of sustainability reporting quality from the perspective of business students, which would assist higher education institutions to develop program curricula and courses that will ensure that the students who will become future employees and managers are equipped with relevant knowledge.